Syllabus of Exchanged Life Errors

Syllabus of Exchanged Life Errors

Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1864 issued a proclamation under the name “Syllabus of Errors” to list a number of errant viewpoints that were contrary to Catholic doctrine. Since I am not the Pope, I am using this title in a tongue-in-cheek way in this paper to issue my own list of errors in one of the doctrines adopted by many of the teachers in the “Exchanged Life” school of counseling. Please note I am a wholehearted follower of the “Exchanged Life” philosophy, dating back to 1975 when I read Authentic Christianity by Ray Stedman followed shortly thereafter Handbook to Happiness by Charles Solomon.

The first great exchange is pictured in II Corinthians 5:21—“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” We exchange our sinfulness for His righteousness. We become new creations, saints made in His image, Ephesians 4:24. This is more than a title given to saved sinners. It is our true identity.

In the second great exchange we live under grace in the New Covenant, where in union with the living Christ we exchange our human energy and effort to please God with his divine enablement through the Holy Spirit. In this arrangement God supplies what He requires. To quote Ray Stedman’s paraphrase of II Corinthians 3:5—“Nothing coming from us; everything coming from God!” (Authentic Christianity, p. 39)

In my opinion the dynamic impact of the exchanged life truths can be reduced or diluted by a confusing error or chain of related errors expressed by many of the exchanged life advocates. In an effort to support the trichotomous view of man, that he/she is body, soul and spirit, they make an air-tight separation between the soul and spirit. These supposedly do not overlap in their functions. One of their authorities is Watchman Nee. “But the Bible never mixes the soul with the spirit or considers the two as the same thing. In addition to being different terms, the soul and the spirit are actually two different substances; they are not the same,” Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man. They propose the soul as our human personality, while the human spirit is our spiritual “personality”.

I read the treatise on the subject by Dr. John Best, Exploring the Treasure of Your New Human Spirit, and several of the books that he draws from. According to this school of thought we relate to God through our spirit, not our soul which is flawed. They say the Holy Spirit dwells in our spirit, which influences our soul, and our soul influences our body. “God will control our spirit, our spirit will control our soul, and our soul will control our body,” Handbook to Happiness by Charles Solomon, 1971 edition, p. 50. This point of view has been in the “deeper life” movement for many years, and exchanged life teachers draw upon those writers for explanation and substantiation.

What is presented below is a composite picture of that school of thought, though every detail may not be held by every writer. I use quite a few quotations to show that I am not knocking down a straw man. I don’t wish to be controversial, but I wish to remove an obstacle to the understanding and application of the vital exchanged life truths. Nothing written here should detract from my respect for the contribution these writers have made to Christian understanding and growth. However, I believe the application of this soul-spirit distinction leads to a number of errors.

I. Spirit-Soul Errors Detected

1. An incorrect view of the fundamental makeup of mankind from creation. In their effort to define the trichotomous nature of man, some exchanged life teachers entirely separate the soul and spirit at original creation: “This tells us that God’s breathing produces two lives, a spiritual one and a soulish one. This means that when God’s breath of life entered the human body, it became the spirit. At the same time, when this spirit came in contact with the body, it produced the soul. This is the source of the two lives, the spiritual life and the soulish life, within us,” Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man.

They give “spirit” characteristics similar to “soul”. That is, the spirit can function in similar ways that the soul does: “The spirit knows, chooses and serves, feels, worships. Notwithstanding similar functions, the spirit and soul are not comingled or identical,” John Best, Exploring the Treasure, p. 83.

“But, when we come to the matter of soul and spirit, not only are two so distinctly different words used, but these are said to be separable without either perishing, and each is vested with its own responsibility, set of faculties and destiny,” T. Austin-Sparks, What is Man? Also from Austin-Sparks, “We must remember that the pneuma, or spirit, is vested with the powers of a definite and independent entity.” Evidently they think there are dual personalities within our persons.

In this view we contact God only through the spirit, not the soul.

2. An incorrect view of the fall of man. In this view the sin of Adam resulted in the death of his spirit aspect only, not his soul or body, in the fall when he was cut off from his relationship with God. “They had memories, feelings and a will. These capacities certainly were corrupted, but they didn’t cease to have life. Depravity extended to them all, but man did not in that day die soulically, that is, in the area of his soul,” John Best, Exploring the Treasure, p. 31.

“The soul is, after all, inherited from Adam. Although the soul is not altogether defiled, it cannot avoid being affected by the fall of Adam. It is natural and quite different from the life of God.” Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man.

3. An incorrect view of the cross of Christ. For them our old man, the unregenerate Adamic spirit, was put to death on the cross and a new man, a regenerated spirit was raised to life. The soul is excluded from this transaction. T. Austin-Sparks is emphatic about this. “…and obviously, it is not the body that is born anew. But neither is it the soul.” “We have said that in new birth it is not the soul but the spirit that is born from above—or born again. The soul remains prone to evil to the end.” “The soul may still be capable of its erstwhile fears, doubts, questionings, feelings, etc., showing that it is not a new soul.” T. Austin-Sparks, What is Man?

“Although his old man has been dealt with already, his soul-life has not been dealt with by the cross. The will, mind, and emotion of this life are active without any restraint, so that the experience of such a believer is still of the flesh.” Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man.

John Best states it best: “That which is born of the Holy Spirit is our new human spirit. Can there be any question that this is what Jesus is explaining in John 3:6? If we do not have a distinct spirit, what was born? It wasn’t a patched up soulical being: This is something brand new and unique that came into existence! The soul was already in existence. Our old soul certainly didn’t get crucified with Christ so it could become a new personality. The replacement that came in was a new creation spirit in Christ, birthed of the Holy Spirit…” John Best, Exploring the Treasure, p.114.

According to them the soul remains subject to corruption, while our spirit as remade in God’s image is reborn to be like Christ. “Although the souls of the born again can be faulty and misdirected, their spirits never can be for they are born of the Holy Spirit (John3:6) created in the holiness and righteousness of the truth (Ephesians 4:24),” John Best, Exploring the Treasure, p.77.

“This (soul) life is altogether different from the new life the Holy Spirit imparted to us at the time of our regeneration. What the Holy Spirit gives us is the uncreated life of God Himself, but this other is the life of man,” Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man.

4. An incorrect view of sanctification. In this view the born again Christian has three entities housed within his/her body. The spirit is the new creation and is entirely righteous. The flesh is the remnant of Adam’s sin dominated nature, which was judged at the cross but somehow is still present. The soul is our damaged but still functioning human personality which is not redeemed and can be allied with either the spirit or the flesh resulting in righteous or unrighteous action.

All three entities have the attributes of personality. Flesh—“An organized and personlike power called sin was at work in Saul, causing him to do things that he didn’t intend to do. This force was not Saul himself.” Drew Farley, The Naked Gospel.

Soul--“[The soul is man’s] true center of personality. It gives him a self-consciousness.” Robert L. Thomas, quoted by John Best, Exploring the Treasure, p.50.

Spirit--“Man’s spirit is composed of three parts, or it has three functions. These three parts are man’s conscience, intuition, and fellowship (that is, fellowship with God, which is the same as worship).” Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man.

The struggle in sanctification is not only against the flesh with its propensity to sin, but also with our unredeemed soul. “Henceforth, in the believer there are two lives— the life of the spirit and the life of the soul, and two natures— the nature of God and the nature of sin.” “Then the flesh spontaneously desires to war against the spiritual life. Such a war makes a believer feel that there are two persons within him,” Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man.

The soul, being unredeemed, is something that needs to be overcome: “The truly spiritual people will find their chief enemy in their own souls, and God finds His chief enemy in the soul of man. When the spirit is renewed, and Christ dwells and reigns within—in other words, when we are ‘filled with the Spirit’—then the soul can come to serve the Lord as a handmaiden of the spirit.”

T. Austin-Sparks, What is Man?

The soul can be called the “self” or the “me” or the “ego”, and it has to be dealt with to make progress in sanctification. There seem to be three possible approaches to the problem of the soul:

a. The first approach is “kill it”. We should probably say “crucify it”. We see this in Hannah Whitall-Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life: “He commands us to look away from self and all self’s experiences, to crucify self and count it dead, to cease to be interested in self, and to know nothing and be interested in nothing but God.”

For Watchman Nee the soul can be crucified and raised back to life so it then is in harmony or union with the spirit. “Because we have the life of God, we can pass through death and remain living. Such a death causes us to lose our soul-life, thus enabling us to be in the resurrected eternal life where we gain God’s life more richly and more gloriously. God’s goal is to have His life within us lead our soul-life through death so that when His life resurrects, it will cause the soul-life to be resurrected with Him and bear fruit unto eternity. This is the highest and deepest lesson of the spiritual life.” Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man.

b. The second approach is to influence the soul and gradually control it. We see this in Jesse Penn-Lewis, Soul and Spirit—“the ‘soul’ is under the power of the flesh, until the regenerated spirit rules by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within. He desires to control and use the soul faculties.” Also T. Austin-Sparks: “The soul has to be taken in charge and made to learn the new and higher wisdom. Whether we are able yet to accept it or not, the fact is that if we are going on with God fully, all the soul's energies and abilities for knowing, understanding, sensing and doing will come to an end.” From John Best: “Next He works through our spirit to infiltrate our soul in a long process of transforming our minds, will and emotions,” Exploring the Treasure of Your New Human Spirit, p. 50. They see sanctification as the gradual controlling or purifying of the soul.

c. The third approach is to escape from the soul and withdraw into our spirit where we can commune with God and be unaffected by the turmoil in the soul. We see this in Dan Stone and David Gregory’s The Rest of the Gospel, and the analogy of the “line” and the “swing”. “Our spirit exists in the unseen and eternal realm where things simply are. It does not change; it is not variable.” “Our union with God does not fluctuate,” p. 70. “The Spirit of God in union with our spirit doesn’t make any noise. What makes noise is your soul: your feelings and your thoughts,” p. 75. “I speak to your spirit in silence,” p. 77. “We learn to live in the Holy of Holies within us,” p. 250. “There is a place of quiet rest, but it isn’t in your soul,” p. 251.

They seem to take this idea of withdrawal to the point where we lose our identity: “All the life comes through you, but you know that it isn’t you. You know it’s really Christ in you as you,” p.81. “We will not live in self-consciousness anymore,” p.81. I see this as closer to Eastern mysticism than Christian spirituality.

Watchman Nee in his work cited apparently agrees with Dan Stone that the human spirit is separated from consciousness: “His spirit is like the Holy of Holies, where God dwells. This place is entered by faith and is totally dark. This is a place which the believer cannot see, feel, or understand. However, further in, there is the Holy of Holies behind the veil, which is unreachable by human light and is a place invisible to the human eyes. This is ‘the secret place of the Most High’ (Psa. 91: 1). It is the habitation of God, a place that no man can reach unless God removes the veil. This is the human spirit. Man not only has a body and a soul but a spirit as well. This spirit is deeper than man’s consciousness; it is the place unreachable by man’s feelings. It is in this place that man fellowships with God.”

The deeper life teaching I am writing about presents three entities residing in our bodies—spirit, soul, flesh. For some spirit is impersonal, but most others think that spirit and soul have the characteristics of personality, that is, thought, emotion, and decision. We know the soul has these characteristics, but they say our spirit thinks, feels and chooses as well. And the flesh is like a person, seeking to impose on us its thoughts, feelings and desires.

For these teachers your soul is the problem. They put all the virtue in the spirit and all the yukkiness in the soul. It sometimes is expressed in diagrams like this:

For the Exchanged Life scenarios presented above, the righteous human spirit is our deepest identity, and from its union with the Holy Spirit we are given the ability and energy to overcome the influence of the other two entities. I find this complicated scenario very confusing and highly unlikely from a Scriptural point of view. Assuming the soul is our enemy, are we supposed to kill it, control it or escape from it? What if the soul is not our enemy?

I can imagine the difficulty of distinguishing between what is of “soul” and what is of “spirit” when the expressions feel the same: “And this shape of the soul, if we may use the expression, in its capacity for joy, love, grief, patience, etc. may be filled with a spiritual joy from the Spirit-life of the Second Adam, poured out into the vessel of the soul; or filled with a soulish-or sensuous joy, moving into the vessel of the soul from the lower life of the First Adam,” Jesse Penn-Lewis, Soul and Spirit.

I feel stress coming from Watchman Nee’s strong admonition about the need to get our soul crucified and resurrected: “The believer must ask the Lord to show him the detestableness of a life of the spirit and soul mixed together and must know that in God there is a life that is both higher and deeper, completely of the spirit, and not affected by the soul. He should know that a spirit-soul mixed life is a life of loss.” Watchman Nee, The spiritual Man.

II. Spirit-Soul Errors Corrected

Let’s start from the top to deal with these errors:

1. Airtight separation between spirit and soul from creation.

These teachers see many references to the human spirit in Scripture, and they think the activities of the spirit, though similar to those of the soul, cannot be part of the soul or overlap with it. However, the creation account in Genesis 2:7 shows that spirit and soul cannot be separated in this way. The first man was created a “living soul”, hYê:j' vp,nè<. He shared soul life with the animals who also were “living souls”. However, the man was uniquely made in the image of God. Receiving his life by the breath of God, therefore he also was a spiritual man with the ability to relate to his creator. This means that the spiritual capacity, or “spirit”, was part of his “soul” from the beginning. It doesn’t say Adam was a “living soul and spirit”. He was a “living soul” whose spirit was a component or capacity of his soul. He was a “living soul” who had a spiritual ability to relate to God.

It would be correct to say that the man, in relating to the physical, psychical (mental) and spiritual realms, was endowed with three sets of “eyes”. He had physical eyes for his body to relate to the physical world; he had mental eyes for his soul to relate to other personalities. We often say, “I see” to express mental comprehension. He had spiritual eyes to relate to God in the invisible, spiritual world. Paul called these the “eyes of your heart” in Ephesians 1:18. All three sets of “eyes” use the mind (or soul) as the seat of their interactions.

I don’t believe you can support from Scripture a human spirit with its own mental functions and/or personality characteristics separate from the soul. The correct model is below:

Physical eyes Mental eyes Spiritual eyes

(Soul)

Intellect Emotion Will

There are numerous places where the spirit is said to carry out the activities of personality, such as being stirred up, perceiving, rejoicing, sighing--similar to the soul. The choice is not whether spirit and soul are identical, with the two terms used to express exactly the same inner activities, or whether they are completely separate, running on different tracks, so to speak. It is sufficient to prove my point if they overlap or operate out of the same center. I agree with the statement of J. Oliver Buswell: “As ‘soul’ designates the non-material personal being, usually when there is some reference to his body or his earthly connections,…so the word ’spirit’ designates a personal being in those circumstances in which reference to earthly connections and ordinary human function is absent.” J. Oliver Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, p. 240. Per Buswell, ‘spirit’ is mentioned more often in relation to worship and our higher relationship with God.

Sometimes they are equivalent or synonymous. In this connection you can compare Hebrews 12:23 with Revelation 6:9 where spirit and soul are interchangeable in referring to those in heaven.

HEB 12:23 “the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.”

REV 6:9 “When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God.”

I believe the soul and spirit are housed together as a single non-material entity, and the decision to use one term or the other is based on a particular focus or emphasis.

To say we have a human spirit that exists parallel to and with similar functions to a human soul opens up a can of worms for me. It means we have two personalities (or natures, cf. Watchman Nee) vying for our attention. This is worse than the traditional portrayal of the struggle between old nature and new nature that Exchanged Life teachers reject. Aggravating the situation is the third factor of the flesh that is also present.

III. An incorrect view of the fall of man.

According to Dr. John Best only Adam’s spirit died on the day he sinned. The soul and body continued, though affected by the fall. As quoted earlier, “They had memories, feelings and a will. These capacities certainly were corrupted, but they didn’t cease to have life. Depravity extended to them all, but man did not in that day die soulically, that is, in the area of his soul,” Exploring the Treasure, p.31.

I guess we should refer to this view as a partial death. However, when Paul stated in Romans 5:14 that death reigned from Adam to Moses, he didn’t make exception for Adam’s or men’s souls. Certainly Adam’s soul and body are included in the reign of death. Bill Gillham was an Exchanged Life teacher who had a proper theology of the soul according to my understanding. He was correct when he wrote: “Adam’s dead spirit was instantly unified with Satan’s spirit, the power of sin. This power of sin entered into Adam and took control over him spirit, soul, and body. He became Satan’s spirit-offspring.” “Not only was his spirit now dead to God, but his soul and body were now dying by degrees as well.” Lifetime Guarantee, p. 81.

I am reminded of the Roman Catholic view of the fall, where the mind is exempted, so that man can think accurately about God with his unaided intellect. In this case they exempt the soul from death.

An incorrect view of the effect of the cross of Christ.

According to some, as the soul is exempted from death through the fall, it is also exempted from our union with Christ on the cross. The soul of a believer remains in an unredeemed state as it was transmitted from Adam. Jesse Penn-Lewis believed it is our “animal soul” that we are still carrying around. “Note on Hebrews 4: 12. ‘EVEN TO THE DIVIDING ASUNDER OF SOUL AND SPIRIT ‘-i.e., reaching through even to the separation of the animal soul (lower part of man's incorporeal nature, the seat of animal desires, which he has in common with the brutes;”

On the contrary, I think it can be demonstrated that the “old man” that was crucified with Christ included his total being. The new person is a complete person as well. “What died? It was everything (emphasis mine) about the former ‘you’ that God could not tolerate in His holy presence. The old you, your old spiritual identity, was executed and replaced by a lovely, new, godly you,” Bill Gillham, Lifetime Guarantee, p. 88.

There are plenty of passages showing that the soul is the subject or recipient of redemption.

I Thessalonians 5:23, which is often used to establish the tripartite human, brings the soul and body into the realm of salvation/sanctification: 1TH 5:23 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” If the entire person can be sanctified, then the entire person must have been involved in the cross. It was crucified with Christ and also resurrected with him. See also Hebrews 10:39: “But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving (or saving) of the soul.”

Everyone knows he/she has a moment death. For the unbeliever it is in the future. For the believer it has already happened. The moment of faith is the moment of death because the old person in Adam dies and the new person in Christ is raised with eternal life. The new person is a complete person. He didn’t leave his soul behind when he was raised with Christ. This new person has already been justified, (sanctified also, Hebrews 10:10) and glorified according to Romans 8:30. “…and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

Just as the glorified Christ is hidden from the world’s view until an appointed time, so is the believer hidden with Christ until then. Paul stated in Colossians 3:3-4, “For you have died [and been raised] and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” That glorious person is hidden underneath the spiritual and physical flesh of our earth-suit.

If we understand our true identity and the hidden nature of it, then we are prepared to have an accurate view of sanctification also.

4. An incorrect view of sanctification. The incorrect view is that there are three entities residing within our bodies—indwelling sin operating through the flesh, our unredeemed soul and our born again spirit, which constitutes our true or deepest identity. In my view our true identity is a complete creation in Christ, real though hidden, consisting in a resurrected body, soul and spirit that is enthroned in heaven. There is no separate soul entity, excluded from the new creation, that needs to be overcome. The flesh is our former identity, crucified with Christ but allowed to hang around and pretend it is still “us”.

The steps of sanctification are as follows:

a. Understand who we are as children of God, with the implication that we live and reign with Christ, being dead to sin and alive to God.

b. Determine to live by faith based on that hidden identity, being led by the Spirit and not responding to the impulses of the flesh.

c. Depend on God’s power to make real in our experience what we know is true about us in the invisible world.

A picture of our identity is given in John chapter 11. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he came walking out of the tomb still wrapped in grave clothes. This was no zombie walking around but a living man in dead man’s clothes. We are like Lazarus; the clothes we wear are the characteristics of the old man still wrapped around our new personalities. Sanctification is unwrapping the “cloths” of the flesh to let the hidden person underneath be revealed and able express itself freely in the physical world.

To use another analogy, we are like a finely crafted gold vessel or piece of jewelry. Perhaps it has been buried in the ground and covered with tarnish or even a layer of dirt. Sanctification is equivalent to washing off the dirt and tarnish to let the glory of the vessel shine forth.

When Jesus walked around on the earth, his glory was hidden by the earth-suit he had acquired. On one occasion in Matthew 17:2 His earth-suit was ripped open and the hidden glory came flooding out. As believers in union with the risen Christ, his glory is incarnated in us as well and is veiled by our own earth-suits. We are sort of like the mild mannered Clark Kent before he goes into the phone booth. Our identity is hidden and waiting to be revealed with Christ.

A proper model of the inner nature of the born again person, if not hindered by the flesh, could look something like this with a broken line, not a solid line, between soul and spirit:

Spirit-Soul Arguments Deflected

It is intriguing to study the use of “soul” and “spirit” and related terms in Scripture. The Hebrew lexicon lists half a dozen meanings for the word “spirit”. Sometimes it is a synonym for life, representing the entire inner person (Psalm 76:12, 104:29). Sometimes it expresses particular aspects of the inner person, whether thoughts, feelings, attitudes, or motivations. The question to be answered is whether these activities of the spirit are completely separate from the soul, having their own organ of thinking, feeling and deciding, or whether they are exercised within the soul.

The presumption based on original creation has to be that the spirit operates within the soul,

and the burden of proof has to be on those who assert its separate existence. When we study the

passages, we find the following:

1. In many Old Testament examples spirit is paired up with soul or one of its attributes, such as heart, in Hebrew parallelism, thus making them synonymous or similar at least. “Parallelism” is a prevalent form of expression in Hebrew literature. “This style is marked by a focus on the arrangement of concepts rather than arranging words in a rhyming pattern. Lowth listed three primary types of parallelism: synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic.” (From “Answers in Genesis”) According to the Jewish Encyclopedia there is “The synonymous [parallelism], in which the same sentiment is repeated in different but equivalent words: (Ps. xxv. 5). ‘Shew me thy ways, O Lord; Teach me thy paths.’”

Respecting synonymous parallelism, four times spirit and soul are directly used as equivalents

(I Samuel 1:15, Job 7:11, Isaiah 26:9, plus Luke 1:47). Many more times spirit and heart are used in the same way. The heart, seldom referred to as a physical organ, is a part of the immaterial soul. I believe the heart resides in the soul, and if the heart is synonymous with the spirit in numerous Psalms, where is the spirit? If they are synonyms, why isn’t the spirit residing in the soul as well? To prove a separate spirit through synonymous parallelism seems impossible unless the spirit is compared with something outside of the soul. Apart from the spirit having its own heart, it’s not going to happen.

There are those who say that the immaterial heart is like the physical heart having chambers, an unsaved chamber which is part of the soul and a saved chamber that is part of the spirit. See John Best, op. cit., pp. 244-245, quoting Woodward in Man as Spirit, Soul and Body. To say the human spirit has its own heart is a convenient invention to try to support a doctrine that will crash and burn if the heart isn’t separated from the soul. John Best weaves the invention of the spirit’s “heart” into his system. On p. 170 of Exploring the Treasure is an example: “Through the Holy Spirit joined to our new spirit heart, we are empowered to walk in God’s ways.”

By the way, what is meant by the term “heart” anyway? In the West the heart is associated with the emotions. In the biblical world emotions are connected to the gut, literally “intestines” or “entrails”, Eph. 4:32, I Pet. 3:8 (Greek splagcnon, eusplagcnon). From the beginning “heart” is associated with the thinking faculty or mind. Genesis 6:5 “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Also Proverbs 6:19: “18 A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil.”

The heart is the seat of personality—thinking, feeling, acting. Heart, mind, and soul all refer to the same thing, our inner person which is not divisible into chambers. If heart is equivalent to mind or soul, how reasonable does it sound to say we have a spirit mind that is redeemed and a human mind that is not, or that we have a spirit soul which is redeemed and a human soul which is not?

A person could apply the same argument that is used to separate the spirit from the soul to separate the heart from the soul. Just as the spirit exercises functions similar to the soul, so does the heart, i.e., thinking, feeling, choosing, rejoicing, worshiping. Why isn’t the heart also separate from the soul? The same reason for not identifying a separate or even a multi-chambered “heart” should be used for not identifying a separate spirit. To put it simply, the multiplying of personalities is unsustainable.

2. Regarding Sihon king of Heshbon, in Deuteronomy 2:30, “the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate”. Not only are spirit and heart synonyms here, but because the unbelieving king was dead spiritually, there was no righteous spirit as a separate entity that could be hardened. The spirit that was hardened must have been something in his soul, along with his heart. There are several other examples of spiritually dead, unbelieving kings being stirred in their spirits to do various things (I Chronicles 5:26, II Chronicles 21:16, 36:22)

3. If only the spirit and not the soul is regenerated, verses that show the soul being saved are a problem. Psalm 34:22, “The LORD redeems the soul of His servants, and none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.” Psalm 49:15, 55:18, James 5:20. I Peter 1:9, “Obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.”

It is easy to disprove the assertion of those who say that salvation for the soul is only for the future, not existing in the present. John Best uses this argument, Exploring the Treasure, p. 241, footnote 8 quoting Alden Chitwood. On the contrary, Psalm 71:23, “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to You; and my soul, which You have redeemed.”

If you want a text that “proves” that the soul is born again, you could look at I Peter 1:22-23. In verse 22 Peter described divinely empowered activities of the soul and heart. Then in verse 23 he said these happen because of being born again: “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.”

4. If our identity in the spirit is a totally righteous spirit, then passages that show the spirit having sinful failings are a problem. Psalm 32:2, “How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit!”

Psalm 78:8, “a generation that did not prepare its heart and whose spirit was not faithful to God”.

Spirit can also be faint, failing, broken, overwhelmed, uncontrollable, haughty, and stagnant, which are familiar characteristics of the soul but not of a perfectly righteous human spirit in union with the Holy Spirit.

It might be argued that the human spirit is not required to be perfect but is allowed room to grow. “A baby is just as much a human as an adult, yet God’s plan is for it to grow. So although a young Christian’s spirit (John 3:6) is just as regenerated as a mature Christian’s spirit, yet God’s plan is for growth of that spirit,” John Best, Exploring the Treasure, p. 81. However, the definition of spirit as being “created in the righteousness and holiness of the truth,” (Ephesians 4:24) does not leave room for this type of growth, since the spirit is perfect from the beginning of (new) birth. Sanctification as growth into holiness can be allowed for the soul, but not for the reborn spirit according to their definition of spirit.

I find it remarkable that those who use Ephesians 4:24 as a reference to the perfect new human spirit fail to notice that the prototype who was made in the image of God in the original creation (Genesis 1:27, 2:7) possessed a soul, whereas their version of the new creation produced by the work of Christ is soulless. It has to make do with that old unredeemed soul. Maybe they should discern that the production model is at least as good as the prototype. If not, perhaps they should insert the word “some” into II Corinthians 5:17 in order to qualify that the new creation has something missing: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; ‘some’ old things passed away; behold, ‘some’ new things have come.”

5. Rather than spirit exerting a positive influence on the mind (soul), there are passages where the mind (soul) needs to subdue or control the spirit.

PR 16:32 “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.”

PR 25:28 “Like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit.”

6. In Job 20:3 Job is reported to say, “And the spirit of my understanding makes me answer.” So “spirit” is part of my “understanding”. The “understanding” is the intellectual component of the personality or soul. Thus the “spirit of my understanding” resides within my soul unless spirit and soul each have their own understandings. There is no compelling reason to make these separate capacities. In Psalm 77:6 the heart meditates and the spirit ponders. Are these dual activities? Are we to think that the spirit uses its own pathways in the brain independent of the heart? Rather, the heart meditating and the spirit pondering are parallel ways of describing the same activity of the inner person from complementary viewpoints. The apostle Paul told the Ephesian church: “that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind,” Ephesians 4:23. Thus your mind has its own “spirit” as well. Wouldn’t this spirit within your mind be part of your soul, since your mind is within your soul? Isn’t this the same as the renewing of the mind in Romans 12:2 where spirit is not mentioned? Renewing the spirit of your mind and renewing your mind are basically the same thing, taking place within the soul. Would anyone say the renewing of the mind excludes the soul?

7. It is clear that when the Lord promised the redemptive work of the Messiah in the New Covenant, He planned to redeem the believer’s soul as well as his/her spirit, because as I have argued, the heart resides in the soul. It should be obvious that the new heart is a re-creation of the old one, not some sort of compartmentalized or chambered new “spirit heart”. He promised an undivided heart that has been made new. He entirely removes and replaces the “heart of stone”.

EZE 11:19 “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,”

EZE 36:26 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

See also: EZE 18:31 “Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel?”

He doesn’t tell them He will create a new chamber for their hearts with the other chamber still composed of stone. They will receive an entirely new heart with a new spiritual capacity. Both heart and spirit are made new. Their relation to each other is what is being defined in this paper.

The fact that spirit exhibits characteristics of personality similar to those of the soul is not an argument of itself for making an air tight separation between them. When some of these characteristics do not reflect the righteousness of an unfallen Adam or regenerated believer, this confirms to me that spirit and soul are intertwined, not distinct.

IV. Old Testament Proofs of ‘Spirit’ Dissected

Next we will examine verses in the Old Testament that are advanced as indisputable evidence of the separation of soul and spirit. Dr. Best claims there are 27 of these. See John Best, Exploring the Treasure, pp.68-72. Since the first Adam set the precedent for the soul having a spiritual capacity, the burden of proof is on those who want to separate soul and spirit as separate identities or personalities.

10 of the 27 verses from the Old Testament Dr. Best uses to demonstrate the independent spirit entity are also connected through parallelism to the soul or aspects the soul, such as the mind or heart. These include Ezekiel 11:19, 18:31, 36:26, I Samuel 1:15, Job 7:11, Exodus 35:21, Zephaniah 1:12, Lamentations 1:20, Daniel 7:15, Isaiah 26:9. Because of their linking with the soul as synonyms, they must be excluded from being used as proof texts for the independent spirit.

Four of the 27 verses refer to stirring up the spirits of unbelievers. I doubt God contacts them through their dead spirits. Thus their “spirit” must be something within their immaterial soul. Genesis 41:8, I Chronicles 5:26, II Chronicles 21:16, 36:22.

Three verses describe believers whose spirits are stirred by the Lord to some sort of action including Haggai 1:14 and Ezra 6:5. However, in the third example, Exodus 35:21 (already referenced above), the heart was stirred up also (parallelism), so we can’t make an air tight distinction between heart (soul) and spirit in this case or exclude the heart in the other two cases where believers’ spirits are stirred up.

So then, we are left to examine 11 remaining verses to see if they support a separate functioning spirit distinct from the soul.

Genesis 45:27, “When they told him all the words of Joseph that he had spoken to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived.”

I Kings 10:4-5, “When the queen of Sheba perceived all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his servants, the attendance of his waiters and their attire, his cupbearers, and his stairway by which he went up to the house of the LORD, there was no more spirit in her.”

Daniel 7:15, “As for me, Daniel, my spirit was distressed within me, and the visions in my mind kept alarming me.”

These three verses express emotions—encouragement, discouragement, distress—normal emotions experienced in the soul. Unbelievers who are spiritually dead can experience these emotions. Just the use of the word “spirit” does not establish spirit as a separate identity and function. To do this, you would need a definite reason to justify the separation. Failing that, you would need to demonstrate these are things the spirit does that the soul cannot do.

Daniel 6:3, “Then this Daniel began distinguishing himself among the commissioners and satraps because he possessed an extraordinary spirit, and the king planned to appoint him over the entire kingdom.”

In Daniel’s world possessing “an extraordinary spirit” likely had reference to the Holy Spirit rather than his human spirit. Daniel had “a spirit of the holy gods” in 4:8, 9, 18, 5:11, 14.

Job 10:12, “You have granted me life and lovingkindness; and your care has preserved my spirit.”

The parallelism here shows that “spirit” is equivalent to “life”. Life includes the whole person. This is not a direct reference to spirit being distinct from soul.

Psalm 76:12, “He will cut off the spirit of princes; He is feared by the kings of the earth.”

Psalm 31:5, “Into Your hand I commit my spirit; you have ransomed me, O LORD, God of truth.”

Psalm 146:4, “His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.”

Ecclesiastes 12:7, “then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”

The spirit departing from the body at death does not show spirit as separate from soul because we also have evidence that the soul departs at death: GE 35:18 “It came about as her soul was departing (for she died), that she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin.” Three of these passages refer to mortal man in general and must also apply to unbelievers. It’s hard to imagine only their dead spirits departing leaving their souls behind.

We are down to two remaining verses to try to establish from the Old Testament the separate identities of soul and spirit.

Proverbs 20:27, “The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the innermost parts of his being.”

In this verse the usual word for spirit, j'Wr, is not used, but rather tm¢'v]nI o“breath”, is used instead. It is only translated “spirit” two times, while six times it is translated “soul”. You can’t build a case from this verse, since the word could very well be translated “soul”.

Malachi 2:15-16, “Take heed then to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth.” “For I hate divorce,” says the LORD, the God of Israel, “and him who covers his garment with wrong,” says the LORD of hosts. “So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.”

Here the Lord is accusing the individuals of dealing treacherously with their wives by divorcing them. Such actions do not reflect the conduct of the righteous human spirit, so this must have originated in their souls. We can make the case that these are unbelievers, since the Lord also states in the same verse: “But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit.”

Out of all the verses that are adduced to establish a separate identity and function for spirit, none of them stands up to scrutiny. Spirit is used as a synonym for soul, heart, life, disposition or mind as expressions of personality. This is particularly evident when we see unbelievers doing these things. For example, DA 2:3 “The king said to them, ‘I had a dream and my spirit is anxious to understand the dream.’”

Unbelievers, of course, do not seek or worship God from their fallen human soul (Romans 3:11). However, when it comes to relating to God, a believer’s soul is capable of hunger for God, love for God, prayer, praise and worship to God just as much as his/her spirit. We should then say that the soul can be spiritual and “spirit” is simply expressing the spiritual side of the soul. To say the Holy Spirit is not energizing the soul directly, but only indirectly through the human spirit (Dr. Best p. 72) is to assume what is never stated explicitly. Until proven, this is arguing in a circle by assuming that the soul and spirit are separate. Following are some examples of the spiritually motivated soul:

PS 42:2 ”My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?”

DT 10:12 “ Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,”

1SA 1:15 “But Hannah replied, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman oppressed in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my soul before the LORD.’”

PS 63:5 “My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.”

PS 63:8 “My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.”

PS 71:23 “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to You; and my soul, which You have redeemed.”

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.

PS 103:2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits;”

V. New Testament ‘Spirit’ Demonstrated

When we turn to the New Testament, we find that it takes up where the Old Testament left off. Mary’s Magnificat begins with soul and spirit used as synonyms for the inner being worshipping God. LK 1:46-47 “And Mary said: ‘My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.’”

You can go to a Greek lexicon and look up “pneuma” (spirit) to find out all you need to know about spirit’s use in the New Testament. Similar to the Old Testament you find that it is used to speak of the immaterial part of man. It can be the total being or life. It can be a general term for animation, vivacity, vigor. Or it can express specific attitudes and dispositions of a person’s personality. These attitudes can be negative—troubled, bitter, discontented, crushed, angry, impatient—or they can be positive—patient, gentle, humble, rejoicing.

The human spirit is subject to imperfection and may be in need of cleansing and sanctification. For example, 2CO 7:1 “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

This means that a believer can be described as dichotomous or trichotomous depending on what your focus is. He/she has two parts—the material and immaterial, body and soul. The immaterial part can be distinguished as soul and spirit, but these are interrelated, not separated. So when soul is spoken of, that does not exclude the spirit, and when the spirit is spoken of, that does not exclude the soul. As to whether you should call me a dichotomist or a trichotomist, I suppose I am both.

So then, expressions of “spirit” can represent the total self or ego including the soul. Such as…

1CO 16:18 “For they have refreshed my spirit and yours.”

1CO 7:34 “The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit;”

2CO 7:13 “For this reason we have been comforted. And besides our comfort, we rejoiced even much more for the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.”

Therefore, don’t exclude the soul when the person is represented by his/her spirit.

AC 7:59 “They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!’” “Spirit” is the equivalent of “life” here.

Also James 2:26: “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”

“His (Paul’s) conviction that the Christian possesses the (divine) pneuma and thus is different from all other men, leads him to choose this word (pneuma) in preference to others, in order to

characterize the inner being of the believer generally Rom. 1 :9, II Cor. 2:13.” A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature translated and edited by W.F. Arndt & F.W. Gingrich, p.681.

It should cause amazement that these two noted lexicographers were totally oblivious to the rigid distinction between soul and spirit insisted upon by deeper life/exchanged life writers.

Following are some examples of the more general sense of an attitude or disposition, which similarly cannot be separated from the soul.

MT 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Poor in spirit probably means poor in his inner life.

2CO 4:13 “But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I BELIEVED, THEREFORE I SPOKE,” we also believe, therefore we also speak,”

1PE 3:4 “but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.”

Peter describes gentle and quiet spirit as an attitude within the heart.

1PE 3:8 “To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit;”

Our review of the New Testament confirms our conclusions from the Old Testament. “Spirit” can

have a variety of uses. It can represent the entire inner life as equivalent to soul, or it can represent particular attitudes or dispositions within the soul, or it can be the spiritual dimension of the soul.

When it is used as an alternative to soul, it may be because the believer’s soul is infused with divine

life, making him different from the animal soul, and the non-believer’s soul which is spiritually dead.

I still do not find any necessity for making a complete separation between the function of the soul and the function of the spirit. I don’t think you will find examples of “spirit” that don’t fit into one of these nuances of the word.

VI. New Creation Validated

The foregoing discussion matters because it is about our identity, and identity matters. It is confusing to think we have two competing personalities within us, not to mention the flesh, which is a third. It’s discouraging to think our own soul is an obstacle that needs to be overcome or bypassed. We need to think of ourselves as new persons, not merely new spirits with unredeemed

souls. By the way, if only the sprit is redeemed, we must leave our souls in the ground with our

bodies when we die, because an unredeemed soul can’t go to heaven. Do we ever get our soul back? In my reading I haven’t found this addressed, but I suppose they would say that it is resurrected/restored along with our bodies at the Rapture. Yet how can that be if the cross doesn’t apply to it? Maybe we won’t need a soul in heaven…?

According to the view I am contesting we have two identities. We are challenged to distinguish between them to find our “deeper” identity and not respond to our “shallow” identity. Sorry, there is only one identity.

Another error that influences this discussion is the failure to see that the negative attributes ascribed to the soul really belong to the “flesh”. The new soul is not corrupted, but the “flesh” is corrupt. As part of the old man it has been crucified with Christ, but it still lingers in the form of an immaterial “flesh” which is not us but seeks to control us, even making us think it is still us.

The true “us” is the new creation, that born again person, a unity of soul and spirit, who participates in the righteous life of Jesus Christ. Our challenge is to be renewed in order to live out of our new--made in the image of God--identity, and not be subject to the “baggage” we carry with us from our former life as a natural, fallen man or woman.

The flesh is our problem, not our soul. “Sin is in the body, not in the personality or the spirit. Your soul and spirit have been ‘sealed with the Spirit,’” Bill Gillham, Lifetime Guarantee, p.105. You will look in vain for the Apostle Paul teaching that the soul needs to be crucified or mortified. On the other hand, part of sanctification is the mortification or putting to death of the flesh.

Galatians 5:24 “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Colossians 3:5 “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”

Romans 8:13 …”for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

When this happens, our life with Christ, which is hidden, becomes increasingly visible as the Holy Spirit reduces the flesh’s hold on our experience.

The Bible’s use of the terms “soul” and “spirit” does not support the air tight distinction that is made between them. Unfortunately usage is all we have, since explicit statements that the believer’s soul is not redeemed, or that spirit and soul are separate entities, or that we only contact God through our spirit, are lacking. These turn out to be unconfirmed assumptions.

Two verses are used to try to establish the point in contention that seem to indicate a separation between soul and spirit as distinct entities:

1TH 5:23 “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

HEB 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,”

I have already shown that spirit and soul in I Thess. 5:23 are both being sanctified, so the redemptive work of Christ is being applied to both. Thus the soul is saved and Paul doesn’t support the distinction between a righteous spirit and unrighteous soul. Therefore, we can’t use this verse to support putting spirit in a separate category of complete righteousness, while soul is not redeemed.

Hebrews 4:12 is the last recourse for establishing the rigid spirit-soul separation. Like the mythological Atlas is it strong enough to support the weight of the really radical assertion that we have two distinct personalities? On the surface it would appear so, or to at least be a possibility, until we look at what follows in the rest of the verse—“able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart”. Fortunately for my case and unfortunately for the other case, the sphere of activity for the Word of God is defined as the “heart”. Heart is the seat of numerous soul functions, including apparently the division of soul and spirit.

At the end of our journey when we look closely, we haven’t found any support for the duality of spirit and soul that the deeper life and many exchanged life teachers have embraced. We have on the other hand found verses that contradict it, that show a many faceted spirit-soul creation with different words expressing the different capabilities of that complex inner being. Among these are

II Corinthians 7:1, Ephesians 4:23, I Peter 3:4 and Revelation 6:9, which have been cited previously.

2CO 7:1 “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

EPH 4:23 “and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind,”

1PE 3:4 “but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.”

REV 6:9 “When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God.”

In conclusion, a Christian’s inner being can be called a soul, spirit, heart, or mind depending on what you want to emphasize. Whatever the case, there is only one personality inside of us, one identity that is born from above, a wonderful identity that is in union with Jesus Christ and is a partaker of His divine nature. Though hidden under a layer of the former fleshly identity, it is working to erupt into our everyday experience through the indwelling Spirit who renews and strengthens us to walk in this new creation. I encourage today’s Exchanged Life teachers and writers to reject the faulty separation of the soul and spirit that comes from the deeper life tradition.

Rick Wakefield, August, 2015

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